People who know me here on JGO might have realized that I watch a lot of anime and read a lot of manga. I am currently living in Japan and studying Japanese full-time, perhaps mostly due to my interest in manga and anime. Last Sunday I went to Akihabara, the anime and manga center of Tokyo, just to look around in the stores for something interesting and maybe play some games in an arcade or so with a friend. Anime happens to be insanely expensive, but manga can be found in bigger book and manga stores for almost nothing (100 yen + 5 yen tax = $1,3), at least the not just released ones. Considering the insane amount of manga produced by the Japanese people only a very small selection get translated to English, either by companies in the West or by fans on the Internet, so I find it very enjoyable to just look around through the 5+ floor book stores for manga I either recognize or just think looks good. For 105 yen it's definitely worth it even if it turns out to be bad (or unreadable due to the lack of furigana).

So why am I telling you this? Again, last Sunday I went to Akihabara and looked around in the stores. In the stores the books are placed in shelves so you have to take them out to see the front. From the top shelf, unreachable to the short Japanese people, I pulled out this:

NICE, but... I mean, I can't buy all mangas I see that have a cover like this, and it's not like I prefer fanservice mangas anyway. Well, if it's cheap I guess I can buy it, cough cough. >=D So I looked at the back.

Aww, it's 315 yen. Then I guess I won't bu--- Wait, what?

Click the image to make it bigger, and sorry for the strong specular lighting and shadow mapping from my arm, I forgot to glDisable those.

WHAT. THE. ****. I just literally randomly pulled out a manga which happened to HAVE JAVA CODE FOR A GAME ON THE BACK. Again, WHAT THE... ?! No, seriously, WHAT?! By now the other people in the store were starting to wonder WTF was wrong with that foreigner (me). >_> Looking at the shelf again I found volume 1-6, grabbed them quickly and paid for them. 2000 yen or so later I am the proud owner of a manga with Java code on it. Some of them even had Hashmaps and ArrayLists!

I have yet to figure out what the kanjis in the manga's name means (it doesn't seem to be Mulciber which is written on the back) or even tear open the plastic around it since I've been busy with school, but damn, am I going to do so NOW! >=D

EDIT: The manga is called 失楽園, or Shitsurakuen, which is the Japanese title of some old book called Paradise Lost. There only seems to be 6 volumes too, so I have them all! >=D Warning/Note: Wikipedia says it's yuri. xD

From the wiki page:"Exaclan (エグザクラン Eguzakuran?) is a virtual game [...] To win the game, one must collect all six "stars". The stars are weapons that, when used, display a bugged symbol consisting of a star and several Java[1] code snippets."

well not that I am unfamiliar with it, being german, all swastikas are of course censored, which is incredibly stupidnot to mention swastikas and reversed swastikas are normal kanjis (symbols) in japanese

I've hung around enough pagans to know about the background of pentagrams (not generally displayed upside down), and a Buddhist temple here in San Francisco has a big ol swastika (also right-way-round) on the door. I was merely remarking on the curiosity of the symbol like it was a watermark for the publisher or something ... then realized that since the game was about "collecting stars", they must mean pentagrams, and then it clicked.

If anyone's interested, it's possible to read it online in English, though I'm not gonna give any direct links just in case. =S Though, it might not be the best manga for a first-timer... xD If anyone happens to be REALLY interested in this I can just run off to Akihabara again, buy another set of them and mail them anywhere, assuming you pay for it of course (no extra charges xD), though the manga is obviously in Japanese.

And censoring stars is just stupid. -_- Stars are awesome, unless you're playing Terraria on hardcore and get one in your head...

If anyone's interested, it's possible to read it online in English, though I'm not gonna give any direct links just in case. =S Though, it might not be the best manga for a first-timer... xD If anyone happens to be REALLY interested in this I can just run off to Akihabara again, buy another set of them and mail them anywhere, assuming you pay for it of course (no extra charges xD), though the manga is obviously in Japanese.

And censoring stars is just stupid. -_- Stars are awesome, unless you're playing Terraria on hardcore and get one in your head...

Have you found out what the code does exactly already? :3Or isnt it compilable code?

A lot of Manga/Anime that are set in a fantasy/historical setting tend to be centered in pseudo-European areas. And when they do, they tend to use symbols that are considered 'Mystical' in those areas. Often sort of hodge-podged together. I mean, look at Full Metal Alchemist. A lot of the symbolism there comes from art found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_of_Solomon and then in the new incarnation Brotherhood, a lot of the art there (Especially on the door of truth) looks like depictions of the Yggradsil, or World Tree, from Norse Mythology.

I don't understand why seemingly homosexual Japanese women in the assumed 1700s-1900s would have short skirts and muskets, let alone be in an army. lol.

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

I don't understand why seemingly homosexual Japanese women in the assumed 1700s-1900s would have short skirts and muskets, let alone be in an army. lol.

Dude, this is a manga, I mean look at the girl's eyes... Looks like one of those THQ lemurs. You should watch Strike Witches

The red haired chicks nose is like 4 feet away from where it should proportionally be too lol

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

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